


Metamorphosis

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Animal Transformation, Author Spent Too Much Time On Google, Awake the Snake (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Drinking & Talking, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Not In The Usual Way, lockdown - Freeform, slightly cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25092178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: With apologies to Franz Kafka.Crowley -- bored, frustrated, drunk, and missing his angel during lockdown -- remembers one of their past encounters and does something unwise. Come morning, Aziraphale's got a problem to solve.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley
Comments: 69
Kudos: 237





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing actually kinky happens.
> 
> (Update 12/25/2020 - now a podfic by Podfixx! Link in end notes.)

Crowley doesn’t remember lying down on the living room floor, but in fairness, it wouldn’t be the first time. The light is too damn bright, and that’s not an unfamiliar sensation either, though it seems even a bit more intense than usual. Systems check. Did he go to sleep as his snake self? No – definitely has extremities, though they’re a little clumsy and stiff. Has he been drinking? Well, yes -- but his mouth feels weird, beyond the lingering smoke of malt Scotch and the faint fur of a hangover.

And there’s a pounding sound, but it’s not in his head; it’s on the door of the flat, which makes no sense whatever. He’d managed a permanent miracle shortly after moving in, which keeps maintenance people and the like away, and who else would come up here during lockdown? Or ever? Hastur and company are going to give him a wide berth from now on, and –-

“ _Crowley!”_

Ah.

“ _Crowley, are you in there?_ I’ve been calling all morning – are you all right? I’m coming in – “

His mouth tries to form the words _Aziraphale! Be right there,_ but only an incoherent fluttering sound emerges, bloody hell, can demons have strokes? Because he’s trying to get to his feet, but all fours is the best he can do, it doesn’t even feel like he’s got knees. He’s trying to push himself up from the floor as the door opens, looks down at his hands – or what ought to be his hands – only to see two fans of curved, scimitar-like claws, claws that would do any demon proud but that he can't quite remember manifesting, and –

“Crowley? I kept ringing up and you didn’t answer and after a while I got worried, and well, you did say you set your wards so I could always pass and – “

A jolting shatter of glass and a fruity billow of aromatic vapours inform him that the angel brought a bottle of good red over with him only to drop it, fatally, on the gray slate.

Aziraphale pulls away the completely adorable mask he must have miracled up for himself, a design of wings, clouds and books on a sky-blue field, revealing an open-mouthed expression that Crowley’s never going to get enough of, no matter how many times he sees the angel gobsmacked. It’s almost worth the current predicament. “Crowley, is that ever _you?_ What on earth _happened?”_

He tries to answer, even though his face is pretty much all snout and his tongue’s roughly the equivalent of an unrolling party horn. Nothing happens there, but somehow his own familiar voice resonates right inside his head, and he can tell Aziraphale hears it too. It’s always worked when he’s a snake.

“Angel. Hey.”

Apparently, it also works when he’s an aardvark.

He shuffles over to the spreading pool of Cabernet on the stone floor, deftly evading the shards of exploded bottle to siphon some up with an adept tongue. It’s not the coffee he’d normally crave right after waking up, but this might be the moment for an exception.

“Not sure myself. Better sit down.”

* * *

Half an hour later, Aziraphale’s miracled away the spattered wine and shards of glass (“you’ll only do yourself a mischief, I can always pop out for more”); gotten the measure of Crowley’s spaceship-worthy coffee machine, and found a shallow soup bowl for the resulting black, savage brew; boiled a kettle and fatalistically immersed an antique tea bag, and finally made himself as comfortable as humanly – or Celestially – possible on the minimalist Scandinavian-style divan.

“You did say you were setting the clock for July, well I thought I would surprise you bright and early, I’ve about _perfected_ my bourbon biscuits, so I rang up from the shop phone, and then I thought, perhaps you used the mute thingy, so I charged up this mobile you gave me – one does forget – and tried sending texts – “ He vaguely remembers the ringing, and the pinging, but there’s not a lot you can do with a mobile phone when it’s on a tabletop and you’re on the floor and you’ve got claws that can dig a three-foot tunnel through loam in fifteen minutes but aren’t remotely prehensile. “So I thought, well, you might have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but I started to worry, and – did I make that right? You’re not drinking much.”

“Need it to cool off. This – uh – corporation doesn’t like hot things.”

“What ever brought this on?”

“Ah, woke up early, couldn’t get back to sleep, pissed off – " _And missed you,_ he thinks, but he'll choke before he owns to that. "Couple of sugars here, d’ye mind? - Ta – and I had that last bottle of Glenmorangie up in the cupboard, almost full, ‘spect I had a few too many. Started thinkin’ about Rome, not sure why. Things weren’t too jammy, then _you_ turned up, ‘member, askin’ if I was _still a demon_ – “

“I do remember. It was so _you_ to make that comeback about… I think I see.“

“So I thought right, let’s try it. Took me a few goes, pretty well plastered by then, thought you might get a laugh – “

“Well, it’s quite made my heart race, if that’s what you mean. Isn’t it time to change back?”

“Think I haven’t been trying?"

“You can’t just snap?”

“What'm I supposed to _snap,_ angel?” He manages to beat a tattoo on the stone floor with the claws. It sounds like castanets.

Aziraphale turns his hand palm up, makes the attempt. Nothing happens.

“No fear. Pure Hellish magic.”

“There’s got to be a solution. Let me go back and get some books.”

* * *  


The angel returns in a couple of hours with a great bustle, a stack of books and a carrier that whiffs of Indian takeaway.

“I’ve really not got any modern books on natural history – some lovely bestiaries but you’re not in any of them – I did find some spells of transformation but they’re a bit dodgy – and I had a look at this Wikipedia thingy, have you ever? I had no idea.”

“Angel, it’s the twenty-first century,” sighs Crowley in a psychic voice of long suffering. He’d roll his eyes if he could figure out how to do it.

The books go down on the end table with a loud thump. Aziraphale settles himself on the divan again, reading glasses coming out of the inside coat pocket to be perched on his nose.

“And oh, I found something about you on the MeTube.” Aziraphale flicks the screen of his phone, with predictable backtracking and frustration.

“YouTube,” Crowley begins before a lilting South African voice blats out into the echoing flat: _“Darkness is the aardvark’s element. It moves sinuously through its nighttime environment…”_

“Turn that _down!”_

Aziraphale cuts the speaker off. “Well, it does describe you rather.”

“Doesn’t help us much.”

“You’re awfully cross. Are you hungry? It says here you eat termites – I don’t know where I’d find those on short order, but I could try – “

“Ugh, angel. Not bothered. Don’t think I need food in this form any more than I usually do.”

“Well, I’m a bit peckish. This is chicken vindaloo, there’s plenty if you think it’ll agree with you.”

He isn’t really hungry, rarely is, but he shoots his tongue out when the angel offers a bite of tomato, just to be sociable. The crumbs of roti Aziraphale drops for him are a bit nicer.

Eating’s always been about sharing a table with the angel anyway. And that’s a damned depressing thought, as in his imagination he shuffles over the threshold of the Ritz – maybe he could get the claws nicely manicured, a glossy coat of varnish – and the angel of his fantasy says _A table for myself and my aardvark, thank you, what sorts of ants have you fresh today?_ Before he realizes it he’s laid his long head glumly across the angel’s foot, and Aziraphale, balancing the takeaway container between his knees, leans down abstractedly as he chews, and scratches Crowley between the ears, stroking up their rabbity length with an infinitely tender touch.

If he had any idea how to manage it, he’d cry.

* * *

_“The Egyptian god Set is usually depicted with the head of an unidentified animal, whose similarity to an aardvark has been noted in scholarship...”_

“Can’t say this gets us any forrarder, angel.”

“Well, Set was involved with envy. Violence. Disorder. Quite your wheelhouse. It might account for why you’ve such an affinity for this form – or it for you – “

“Fucksake, you remember Egypt. You know I was Apep. At least for a bit in the Theban Dynasty.”

“This article suggests they’re connected.”

“Shows you what university types know.”

“Well, in my Heavenly form I’ve got faces from entirely different _classes_ of animal too _._ I have to say, I’ve got used to having only the one. It was rather wearing.”

This seems to set off a train of thought. “I _have_ heard rumblings of angels starting to think, um, outside the box after you… well, didn’t back down for Gabriel. Do you imagine anyone in Hell feels the same way? It might cut through the Gordian knot.”

“Even if I thought that was safe, angel, I wouldn’t give ’em the chance to laugh.”

“If they did, I would _smite_ them.”

He looks like he means it, eyes flinty and lips set. Crowley’s aardvark heart thumps out an extra beat, and he’s suddenly thankful for his current form, because the thought of Aziraphale going full angel _for him_ threatens to make his legs give out. At least in this shape he doesn’t have far to go. He takes a moment to get control of his occult voice.

“ ‘ll think it over.”

* * *

“You could come out to the store with me.”

It’s the next morning, and after a night sitting up with unhelpful thaumaturgical texts, Aziraphale’s decided they’re in this for the long haul and should get some fortifying tidbits and supplies.

“The rules’ve been eased, you know. The restaurants can do business, though I don’t really think anything but takeaway sets a good example – bother. I can’t think how we’d get a mask to fit you.”

“Pitching it a bit high anyway, angel. What’re people going to do when they see an aardvark parading down Regent Street? Call the Zoological Gardens?”

“Ah – point. I _could_ put you on a leash, I suppose.”

This sounds more appealing than Crowley likes to admit, but he’s damned – well, a second time – if he’s going to let on. Aziraphale mistakes his silence for consideration and adds “Eccentricity _is_ a British tradition.”

“Right, you’re just going to the pet store 'n' ask for a leash and harness for your aardvark. I’m about the size of what, a Rottweiler?”

“A _small_ one. A bit lower to the ground. Not at all threatening.”

“All the same to you, angel, think I’ll just stop here and watch the baking show. Tune it in before you go?”

“Really, a bit of air would do you good – oh, as you please. I’ll put you down another saucer of coffee.”

* * *

“Here we are – tabouli salad and ful medames from that odd little place in Hanover Street – shaved turkey and some ciabatta rolls –– people are being dreadfully imprudent, you know, I had to simply _dodge_ about. I kept miracling piles of masks at every shop door I passed. I can’t think how this all will end. Some shortbreads, you know I can’t resist those – you might like them in this form and – here, just for you.”

The angel deposits a gargantuan cucumber on the kitchen lino.

“That’s obscene, angel. What’m I meant to do with _that?”_

“Well, the Wikithingummy says you eat a lot of something called the aardvark cucumber in your natural habitat.”

“I’m not deep-throating that. Or deep _snouting_ it or whatever you had in mind.”

“I could make some proper sandwiches. I’ve got a boule in here too, and some Irish butter. I simply can’t think on an empty stomach.”

  
* * *

“Well, _that_ went pear-shaped rather quickly.”

Aziraphale’s flapping one of Crowley’s oversized Egyptian-cotton towels in a futile attempt to dispel a haze that shares equal notes of scorched rubber, vegetable decay and Nag Champa. “Can’t we get a window open?”

“Penthouse, angel. They don’t open.”

“I can’t think what I did wrong – “

“That jar of pickled onions _has_ been in the back of my fridge since 1993.”

“I hated to go right back out to the shops, and it seemed a decent enough substitute for allium. Meant to dissolve barriers. It’s got to be some sort of etheric block.”

“Where did you get this spell again?”

“Anathema rang me back just as I was waiting for the lift. We _have_ kept in touch, she was so interested in some of the old codices, and I thought something that wasn’t either Heaven or Hell might help - ”

“You’re tryin' _witchcraft_ now?”

“It was worth a go.”

“Well, turn on the extractor fan in the bath. Just glad I’m low to the floor here.”

“Let’s try the roof till it clears out. It’s quite pleasant outside.”

_* * *  
_

“This is nice.”

“Yep. Perfect summer evening, up on the roof with your pet aardvark.”

“Don’t take on so, Crowley. We’ll sort this. We’ve gone through worse.”

The London skyline’s slowly shading towards the long summer twilight, the street noise dwindling. They’ve spread out a tartan blanket – well, Aziraphale has, anyway, and he’s not sure what this particular artifact was doing in Crowley’s linen cupboards, but he’s experiencing a warm inner glow that isn’t entirely from the Shiraz he brought up with them. He’s sipping from the neck of the bottle and periodically refreshing Crowley's bowl.

“Much nicer than that house brown back in Rome. I was so happy to see you.”

“You were _flirting.”_

The words slip out before he can consider them. The wine seems to be going to his aardvark head more rapidly than it usually affects his human shape. Aziraphale, however, looks perfectly delighted to be accused of flirting.

“You looked so _gloomy,”_ he answers, scratching the long head again. Crowley finds himself butting up into the friction, like a cat. Do aardvarks do that? Aziraphale works his manicured nails at the bases of the silky ears. “Bit like a rabbit’s,” he says. “Nice.”

“‘M’ not _nice.”_

“Oh, we’re not doing _this_ again, are we?”

“ ‘N’ I know what happens when you get your hands on a rabbit -- ”

Aziraphale sputters, makes an annoyed gesture to miracle a wine splash off his tie. It’s been a strain, the last couple of days. They’re both a little silly with exhaustion; Crowley’s next sip of wine goes the wrong way up the tapering snout, which isn’t really designed for sipping, and there’s a lengthy bout of huffing and sneezing as Aziraphale tries to decide where, exactly, you clap an aardvark on the back.

“All right there, my dear?’

At least, on the psychic level, he can speak while he’s still wheezing. “Not really built for drinkin’ wine, this.”

“Hm. Had an idea earlier. Let’s go in.”

* * *

Aziraphale’s in the kitchen, puttering inscrutably, and he’s got the telly on, though to Crowley’s annoyance the angel’s found a classic nature documentary on the BBC website.

“Puttin’ me to sleep, this is,” he gripes as Aziraphale emerges with a proper wineglass and another large bowl. “What about something else?”

“Oh, certainly, if you’d rather – I suppose it was the videos on that Tube thing that put me in mind of it – Mr. Attenborough really was a national treasure – “

“What about a Bond movie? Got the whole collection.”

“With those awful explosions and car chases and – ? oh, well, of course, dear. You pick.”

He sets the bowl down and returns shortly with the small collection of Blu-Rays.

“What’ve we got here? Popcorn’d be a bit like ants.”

“No, it was a notion I had –and the wine was going up your nose, so – I’d looked into it a bit more, and apparently aardvark cucumbers are really more or less melons, and I’d got one. You had an almost full bottle of vodka in the freezer…” The bowl contains the entire meat of a large cantaloupe, which has been turned into perfect small spheres with some kitchen instrument that Crowley doesn’t remember owning, and has clearly been marinating in Ketel One.

“It’s an American thing,” says the angel, holding out a tidbit. “They do it at beach parties. I read about it – “

“ – on the Internet,” finishes Crowley for him, and giggles. Do aardvarks giggle?

Daniel Craig charms women and thwarts villains, a car rolls down a mountainside, Aziraphale decides to sample the melon himself.

“How ‘bout a lift up, angel? Gettin’ a crick.” He’s not sure if he actually has a neck, by strict definition, but what _is_ there is getting sore from angling up to see the screen.

Aziraphale bends and boosts him up to settle on the couch after a brief scrabble. Slides an arm companionately over his back; keeps feeding him morsels of boozy melon. It does go down sweet. Something to be said for those documentaries. He realizes his head’s resting on the angel’s cashmere lap, his whiplike tongue is wrapping around angel fingers to retrieve the melon bits. Somehow the credits are rolling, the schlocky music swelling.

“Nice not bein’ on the floor.” He can speak a lot more clearly inside his own head than his human corporation would be managing at this point. “Seen ‘nough ’ve my own baseboards last couple days. Named every one’ve the dust bunnies. Could pull my dust bunnies out’ve your sleeve, angel.”

“Hat.”

“Don’t wear hats.”

“No, I mean mine.”

“ _Definitely_ don’t wear _your_ hat.”

“You’re drunk, Crowley.”

“ ‘Course I am.”

“Both are.”

As if to prove what Aziraphale’s just said, Crowley slides heavily off the couch, long claws clattering as he hits the slate.

“Mmm. Can’t sober up. Aardvark.”

“Terribly unfair of me to, then.”

“So don’t.”

“You’re down there. With the dust bunnies. ‘N’ the baseboards.”

A lengthy silence.

“Crowley? You asleep?”

“Hm?”

“Let’s get you to bed. Perfectly nice bed. No baseboards.”

* * *

Somehow he’s in that hermetic capsule of a bedroom, he’s futilely pawing the edge of the low, rumpled, king-sized bed without finding any purchase, until strong arms encircle him amidships and heave him up. “There you are, dear. Aardvark in silk.” A heavy _whump_ indicates that Aziraphale’s followed him.

“Angel?”

“What, Crowley?” (It’s actually muffled into the pillow, to the point that all he can hear are vague vowel sounds, but he’s known Aziraphale long enough to translate.)

“What’f we never figure out how’t’change me back?”

“We will, Crowley.” This time it’s just the cadence that conveys Aziraphale’s meaning.

“But what’f we _don’t_? How long y’wanna hang about with'n aardvark?”

“ ‘S’not just _any_ aardvark. ‘S’ _you_ , Crowley. M’fren. Stuck with me through everything. Find a way, we’ll fix this. Bes’ fren’s.” Aziraphale’s hand reaches out blindly, just misses Crowley’s fortunately closed eyes, lingers on the long ears. “Always look out f’r each other. Y’looked out for me. Here for you.” And with a fairly seismic disruption of the pillows, the angel’s arms go around whatever it is he _does_ have instead of a neck.

“Liked y’fine when y’were a snake, y’know? Always kinda wanted y’to be snake with me. Again. Just wrap around. Gi’me a big snakey hug.”

“Are we givin’ hugs now?”

“Jus’ mind the claws.” Aziraphale snuggles closer. “Bes’ fren’,” he repeats, and smacks a woozy kiss onto the unlovely end of Crowley’s aardvark snout.

It feels like he’s popped in on himself, and stretched past the length of himself, and lifted off the mattress as a stone of body mass disappears into ether. He’s suddenly no longer fur-covered and cumbersome, but slender, silk-clad, and still sozzled to the gills – which, thank Someone, he doesn’t have.

What he has is Aziraphale, wrapped around him, lips pressed to his.

“Ack,” they both manage to observe, simultaneously.

Crowley’s _never_ going to get enough of that expression. “What _ever_ – “

And notices that although the angel looks as if every law of Nature has been violated in front of his eyes, with extreme prejudice, he’s not pulling away.

He hesitates before feeling his own familiar features – he’s never been so glad to have this beaky nose and angular jaw, or the knuckly, blessedly clawless hand that runs over them.

“ 'f I'd known _that_ was the mixture all along - ” 

(Aziraphale’s still not letting go.)

“There _is_ a traditional story about a frog...“

“ 'm sure there is.”

They’re in bed together. Aziraphale’s holding him. Aziraphale just _kissed_ him.

He notices Aziraphale’s sobered up. So has he.

Time to take the leap. “Do that again, angel?”

It seems to take a moment sinking in, but there's a light in the angel's eyes that he's only seen in flickers before, _may I tempt you?_ just as, he realizes, he's never -- well, it's never been safe -- but now -- “Ah – I suppose – are you certain it won’t make something _else_ happen?”

“Oh, it _might_.”

Definitely back in his own body again.

“I’ll chance it.”

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for reading -- fanart and podfic welcome! Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Metamorphosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617516) by [Podfixx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Podfixx/pseuds/Podfixx)




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